1. Field
The present disclosure relates to an ice-making machine, and more particularly, to an analysis of an acoustic wave that is propagating through a body of water in the ice-making machine. The analysis recognizes when the body of water is frozen, so that the body of water can be harvested, as ice, from the ice-making machine. The analysis also diagnoses operations of devices in the ice-making machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, the approaches described in this section may not be prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
For efficient operation of an ice-making machine, it is desirable to remove the ice, also known as harvesting the ice, soon after the ice has fully formed. Such harvesting of the ice allows for a new body of water to be introduced so that a new body of ice can be formed, thus maximizing the usage of the ice-making machine.
One technique for recognizing the readiness of the ice for harvesting is to monitor a magnitude of a mechanical vibration that is propagating through a body of water as the body of water is being frozen. At a point in time when the magnitude exceeds a predetermined threshold, the body of water is assumed to be adequately frozen, and so, is harvested.
This existing technique uses only amplitude change above a set threshold to detect ice formation. This technique has a drawback in that it does not distinguish between various possible sources of mechanical vibrations, and so, cannot determine whether the change is due to a change in acoustics of the ice-making machine or spurious acoustics in an ambient noise environment. Consequently, the existing technique does not necessarily initiate harvesting at a most optimum time, and therefore, the ice-making machine may be operating at a less than optimum level of efficiency.